The Master Behind the Play
by Shaded
Summary: Why? Why? Why? The one question that needs so desperately to be answered is the one question that is so difficult to comprehend. To live, to really live, it must be answered. The story of a journey into one person's soul, into their reach for the master b


**The following story, The Master Behind the Play, is copyright to Shaded and is not for reproduction in any form without express permission from the author.**

Lost...

Confused...

Frightened...

Bewildered...

Those words don't convey what I mean for you to understand. They don't lend you the overwhelming vortex of feelings that threaten to pull you down and never let you resurface. I've never been a dramatic person, I've always been very simple, very normal, wanting what everyone else wants, living like everyone else lives. Until now... But I suppose that's what makes me, once again, like so many others. I can't control what tricks life pulls. The very fact that I am susceptible is the very proof that I am just like you. I don't want you to read this from a aloof point of view, I don't want you to feel as though your listening to the story of another person, I want you to become me. To feel as I feel, to know within every cell of my body that I am what I am and the most terrifying thing is. I am human.

I wonder whether it's planned, who dies, who lives, who gets rich, who goes on welfare. I've always wondered, always asked, just like everyone else. I didn't grow up in a home where people talked about things, not real _things_, conversation never went beyond the daily activities ahead. I'm afraid my people were never very spiritual, aesthetic, however you would put it. They weren't people who looked inwards, at least, not very often. They were mostly content to live their lives on the outside.

I'm telling you this for a reason, so that you'll understand what I say when I tell you what I have in my mind. Always, I had been considered intelligent, intellectual, But inside I was more ignorant than a child. Much more. That child would have been fresh from a day of play, spirit tingling with a food that no material earthly substance could satisfy. I was dead inside. Dead spiritually. I lived, laughed, talked, ate, but inside I was numb and life passed in a blur of motions with no real meaning, just an existence. We weren't made to live in such a fashion, our souls wither under such punishment. Mine did, and I ached but I didn't know why, or from where. Questions presented themselves and I pushed them away. I didn't know the answers, people around me didn't know. Friends of mine, when I pushed for answers, took me to their temples, their centers of worship. There was fellowship, interaction, warmth, but not the thing I sought. I sought something deeper. A master behind the puppets. I wanted to know... why? It was such a simple question and there were so many answers, but none of them fulfilled the agonizing need for knowledge. It wasn't until the day I met Lysos that I really understood. And even then it was just a glimpse of the light behind the curtain, just a taste of what was to come. I wasn't prepared for it, but then, who ever is?

The gods are fickle beings, creatures of terrible beauty and great passion, yet so human-like that I find it hard to look up to them. At times, I confess, my doubt rears it's ugly head and I find myself surrounded by thoughts of distrust. I have never seen a god, or even a deed performed by a god. To be blind and yet still believe is called faith, but I would rename it as being foolish. Yet whenever I dare let such thoughts take precedence I grow ashamed and frightened, both at once, as if feeling the wrathful gaze of the immortal ones turned my way. The feeling is a strange one, and a part of me delights in knowing I have caught their attention. This worthless mortal.

I have never been very strong, of body that is. My weakness physically has led to my strength mentally. I have spent many, many hours thinking. And all my thought, all my inquiry leads me in circles over and over again. However many times I try to find something worthwhile I am led to that dreaded question. Why? But enough of my mad pondering. I have led you on this chase long enough. Now I must go to the beginning, the beginning of my real search for what I have lived so long without.

I was born in a small village outside of Argos, a small kingdom alongside the Aegean. I have no idea who my parents were for I was left to die. Such a common occurrence among us Greeks. The weak or the unwanted are left to die, cast out onto a roadside or temple steps for the fates to cut their thread, so pitifully short already. I have little trouble guessing why exactly I was thrown out. For as long as I can remember I've been blind, my two eyes a sightless haze of blue, blue as the lightest ocean spray. My world has always been a black one, filled with hovering hues of dark shapeless forms. That is as much as I've ever been able to see of the world around me. My other senses however have more than compensated for that one loss and I have never felt bitter at my dark existence. After-all how can I? I have never known what it was I've missed. I wonder how long it was before my parents, whoever they were, realised I was sightless, how long it took before they decided to be rid of me.

It matters little for in the end they left me, a red squalling child, at Hermes grove, a site dedicated to the god. An odd choice, though I doubt they thought much of it at the time. Hermes, patron god of thieves and travelers, inventor of the lyre. As it was the fates did not see fit to end my tale so soon. I was taken by a priestess of the place, taken and raised as her child. She died when I was twelve but by that time I was already apprenticed to a bard. Apprenticeship was common way of surviving in our village, if you weren't a peasant-farmer and had no craft of your own you were apprenticed. It was merely a way to live, above the status of a beggar. My life was a fairly easy one, the man I called my master was a bard, not merely an entertainer which is a base sort of musician, but a skilled man with great musical talent. I learned what I could from him. We travelled continuously, finding lodging at the nearest palace, entertaining kings and their barons. It wasn't a bad life and I wasn't treated badly, all things taken into consideration. Life was life, always plagued but always existent. The day I met Lysos is when this particular story begins. Lysos... evil bastard.


End file.
